by Lyn Stone
Greed, of course.
"When I was on the phone with him, Mercier told me they went after Bruegel to bring him in for questioning," Ben said. "He's disappeared. No trace."
"Think he's over here?" she asked.
"I hope so. I'd sure like a little face time with him at this point."
"Maybe he's in the car that's been following us," she said calmly, removing her hand from his. "Wouldn't that be too good to be true?"
Ben turned around and peered out the back of the taxi. "That blue sedan?"
She nodded.
"You plan to let them catch us," he guessed. "Where?"
"At an opportune place, at least for us."
She reached in her purse and pulled out a Walther PPK. "Here, take this. Our new pal from the embassy shares her toys." She handed him an extra clip. "Get as close as you can. Take body shots so you won't miss. You any kind of marksman?"
Ben grinned as he examined the pistol and got familiar with the feel of it. "I'll muddle through."
He was ready to mix it up with these goons. Locating stamps had sort of dropped down his priority list.
Chapter 15
Dani poked the driver on the shoulder with her free hand and dropped a wad of bills on the front seat and gave him orders in French. "Go left just ahead. Get us out of the city and show me how fast you can do it."
The cab swerved. The driver sped dangerously through the traffic.
Ben swayed with the turns and gave a fleeting thought to his mother. He hoped she was holding up all right. He should have called today to reassure her, but he hated to lie to her. How was it moms always knew about it when you did?
"What's that smile all about?" Dani asked. She gripped the armrest and braced herself in the corner between the back of the seat and the door.
"I was thinking about my mother," he admitted.
Dani gave a cough of disbelief and rolled her eyes.
"What's wrong with that?" He remembered her past. "You've got issues. Sorry, I forgot."
"I have issues?" she asked with a laugh. "You're the mama's boy." She paused, then added, "Benji."
Ben could see how she'd reached that conclusion. He wondered himself at times if he wasn't becoming what she said. He had tried hard not to harbor any resentment about giving up his career. He had made his choice, and for a very good reason. The guilt could get a hell of a lot worse if he stressed his mother to death.
"It nearly killed her before, my coming home in the shape I was in," he told Dani. "At one point, she was closer to death than I was, so excuse me if I take a minute to worry about how the outcome of this might affect her."
"Heart problems?" Dani asked, frowning, feeling a little foolish for teasing him.
He nodded. "And still at risk."
"Hard to believe a mother would expect her son to give up his life for hers."
Ben knew Dani didn't understand. With the only reference to parents that she had, how could she? "She would never ask that, and I didn't give up my life."
Dani's gaze met his. "Didn't you?"
"No!"
"Okay, so stay in one piece and don't give her any more shocks." She sighed. "Then you can get back to your bank."
"That's the plan," he snapped. But what Dani said bothered him. A lot. Would his mother want him to deny what he was, to live the half-life he had chosen now? She had never asked him to give up his career and its element of danger, but Ben realized he sort of blamed her for the existence he had in Ellerton. Just an existence, no movement. Since he had fully recovered, the suit he had put on had begun to chafe.
He shook off the worry for now. He had to survive today and see that Dani did, too. His best chance of doing that required total focus on the problem at hand. He promptly dismissed any thoughts that would distract him during the combat they faced here very shortly.
They were the prey at the moment. "Become the predator," he muttered beneath his breath. A coldness stole over him, as it always did when he went into hunting mode. He was no longer escaping a threat, but luring it to destruction. The weapon warmed in his grasp, became an extension of his arm, his hand, his mind.
Dani met his gaze. Her eyes widened with what appeared to be surprise. Then she gave him an infinitesimal nod of approval.
"Any premonitions I should know about?" he asked, his words almost lost in the screech of tires when their driver left the highway and began bumping down a winding, unpaved road.
Dani shook her head, her attention locked on the path behind them. He thought she might be lying. It didn't matter though. He needed no advance warnings anyway, psychic or otherwise. They had left civilization and entered a wooded area with curves and turns that offered possibilities.
Things were about to get interesting.
Victor Bruegel threw his shaving kit across the room. He clutched the cell phone to his ear and breathed through gritted teeth until he got his temper in hand.
"Where the hell are they now?" he demanded, then managed to calm himself a little when Kelior told him that Michaels and the woman were in sight of his men and would soon be history.
He sat on the edge of the bed and glared out the window of the Bahnhof Hotel, imagining that on the city's streets he could see the chase ensuing miles away in the neighboring country. He wished he were there. Wished he could pull the trigger as he looked straight into Ben Michaels's eyes. But he'd have to take what he could get.
"Get rid of them and leave no traces, understand? This cannot come back on us."
On me, he meant. He didn't give a damn about Kelior.
Kelior had the money, soon to be exchanged for the more portable stamps that he would provide to the al Muhad group.
Every move of the funds had included some in-crimination of Michaels. The feds would pick up on that soon.
Victor again told himself he wasn't a traitor; betraying his country wasn't his intent. The money wasn't nearly enough to finance a huge disaster. He couldn't justify backing anything major, even to enrich Persand Inc. But a couple of incidents would jack up the threat level in the U.S. and increase sales considerably. Besides, if he didn't provide funding, they'd get it somewhere else, so it was not really enabling the enemy. Business was business.
The funds were a pittance compared to the government contracts he was looking at. Those would get signed and sealed as soon as the al Muhad bunch acted. The group would probably import some bombers, get them wired, hit a mall, maybe a theme park. That ought to do it. Minimal loss. Maximum scare.
But first, he had to make certain Michaels was buried. And that female fed with him. They had no real information connecting things to him or to Persand, Victor was certain. Nothing they could prove anyway. He had that covered. But Michaels might somehow guess who had it in for him. Ben always had a sixth sense when it came to figuring things out. Too bad he hadn't used that in Afghanistan when it counted.
Even if Ben never got a clue, Victor wanted him dead and dishonored, even more than he wanted a wildly successful company and more money than he could ever spend. Riches would mean nothing if Michaels was walking around free and happy after what he'd done.
As he spoke, Victor gripped the phone hard enough to bend the thin plastic. "I want him destroyed and I want it now," he declared. "Your survival is linked directly to the success of that."
He ended the call abruptly. Kelior had things in hand.
The dirt road, little more than a curving, rutted track through the woods, narrowed. The driver had to brake for a sharp turn. Dani ordered the cabbie to stop. As soon as he did, she had the door open. "Go, go!" she shouted to the driver the instant they had cleared the car. She pounded on the fender, then dashed into the brush beside the road. The taxi spun off, slinging dirt and grass, and flew around the next curve. The vehicle disappeared from view, even as she heard the chase car approaching.
"Take cover over there and go for the tires," she ordered, bracing her arm against a large tree to steady her aim. "Do it as soon as we spot the car, before they g
et even with us so we don't shoot each other! Unless they throw down and surrender, I'll take the driver. You go for the passenger. Ready?"
Ben dropped to a crouch behind a tall pine. The blue Citroen wheeled into view and they opened fire on the tires. The car veered and hit a tree. Doors flew open and men spilled out, already firing. Ben jacked in a fresh clip.
Dani's plan would have worked perfectly if there had been only the driver and passenger. Unfortunately, two more gunmen fled from the backseat into the woods.
Ben got the front seat passenger in the leg. Dani winged the driver as he ran. Two hits, but non-debilitating hits. Ben dropped and rolled across the road, firing into the trees where the men had run.
"Dani?" he called when he reached the tree where she had been but didn't find her there.
They stood a better chance if they were together and could watch each other's backs.
"Here," she rasped, crawling to his side from where she had concealed herself. "You okay?"
He nodded and spoke in a low monotone. "The backseat boys will probably circle around to get behind us. The two we hit are still armed, too. Your guy staggered over that way. Mine is on the ground, using the back wheel for cover. I'm taking them out before the other two get in place and we catch it from both directions. Cover me."
He gave Dani no time to argue, just took off, zigzagging the twelve to fifteen yards between him and the wrecked sedan. She pumped several rounds beneath the car and more into the trees to cover him. Ben took a chance. He whirled around the back of the vehicle and threw himself on top of the man lying flat on the ground.
They struggled for the weapon he held, an AK-47 that could have cut Ben in two. But he held fast to both the man's wrists and managed a swift kick to his injured leg. With a harsh cry of pain, the shooter went rigid. Ben crowned him with the butt of the captured gun and watched him collapse.
That one act flashed Ben right back to his hospital stay.
"And what did you feel when you dealt serious injury or death to someone?" Ben heard the shrink ask him. That holier-than-thou attitude. He had hated the therapy forced on him in the hospital���he had learned too much about himself.
"Safer," he had answered honestly. Not a satisfactory reply, he had found out. But now, right this second, he did feel safer than he had moments ago. And he was about to feel safer still, as soon as he took out the other shooter hiding in the bushes. He knew that one, damn his soul.
He heard the rustle. "Give it up, Kelior," Ben said in a normal tone. "It's over."
In answer to that, two shots chipped bark off the tree inches from Ben's head.
"Okay, your choice," Ben replied. He tossed off another couple of rounds in Kelior's direction. The shots that answered his missed. Hearing rapid clicks, Ben rushed the fallen Kelior before he could reload. He kicked him in the temple. "Two down," he said to himself.
He did a cursory check for other weapons and found a knife strapped to Kelior's leg. He took it, then gathered up the automatics as Dani joined him.
"Impressive," she commented. "Are you freakin' nuts?"
"Sometimes," he admitted. That was probably his shrink's conclusion, too. He had let the woman think she'd reprogrammed him, though. For her sake and his mom's. He liked to keep people happy.
"It just irritates the hell out of me to get shot at, even if I shoot first," he grumbled. "Is that really so out of whack?"
Dani chuckled and grabbed the AK-47 from his hands. She plundered the shooter's coat pockets and retrieved the clips. "Well, don't sign up for anger management today. We've still got two more out there."
He touched her lips with his finger. "Be quiet." She stilled immediately, understanding without his having to insist. Ben listened for the approach. He hoped these men weren't well trained. Street thugs generally weren't, and he couldn't imagine who else Kelior could have hired on such short notice.
Then again, maybe they were from one of the cells that had received rigorous military training. Maybe they were as adept at search and destroy as he was.
He didn't hear a thing. Birds had flown. There were no nature noises to mask movement. Maybe the two who had been in the backseat had feared they were surrounded and just...ran.
And maybe there was a Santa after all.
"They didn't circle. They're staked out down the road, waiting," Dani said. "That's the only way out of here. They'll take us as we go back."
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"Rom certain?" He raised his eyebrows and smiled, his bottom lip caught between his perfect white teeth.
Dani bobbed her head once as she grinned back at him, obviously amused by the term he had just coined and probably surprised that he would tease her about her Gypsy gift.
She dropped to one knee and fished around in her shoulder purse. Activating her phone, she punched in a number from the list Cate had given her. "Resources," she explained. "We have no transportation back to town." She checked her watch again, gave their coordinates off her GPS readout and ordered them a ride.
"What about the two waiting for us down the road?"
She smiled and checked her watch again. "Oh, we'll have them secured by the time a car gets out here, don't you think?"
He smiled back.
"No sense sitting around waiting. Let's check out the car, get these guys tied up and go." God, Dani was a girl after his own heart. No pretense about her, nothing false. No weakness, either. She didn't like violence any better than he did, but she would damn well dish it out before she took it.
Now that seemed like fairly sane programming to him.
Ben suffered a brief epiphany in that moment, realizing that he had indulged in pretense, falseness, and, yeah, a little weakness this past year. Even if he looked totally different than before, he hadn't changed inside. He was still a soldier.
He joined Dani as they quickly searched the damaged car for money, stamps and anything else incriminating to add to the illegal automatic weapons the occupants had brought along.
"Nothing! What the hell did he do with it?" Ben growled. He fished in the corner of the trunk and came up with a coil of thin cable and a pair of wire cutters.
"How far down the road are they?" he asked, grunting with effort as he rolled the unconscious Kelior over to tie him with a length of the cable.
"Far enough," she said, putting the finishing touches on her shooter's bonds. "How's your guy doing? Mine has a flesh wound in the upper thigh. Stopped bleeding," she said, wiping one hand on the nearby grass.
Ben looked down at Kelior and plucked at the sleeve covering the spot were Dani had winged him. "Still out like a light, but he'll live. How're you fixed for ammo?"
"Good to go," she said, sliding back the carriage on her pistol and peering down the sight. She tucked it in her holster and took up the AK.
"Me, too." Ben pointed to the opposite side of the road. "Stay well back, move slowly and keep your ears trained. Soon as you hear or spot them, close in, but keep at least ten yards back this side of them to avoid crossfire." He delivered a pointed look along with the same patronizing warning she had given him earlier.
"Touch��," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. "By the way, you know I'll have to identify myself, offer them a chance to give up. No tires to shoot out this time."
Ben groaned. "This is combat, Dani. They're not going to throw down. We'll lose the element of surprise."
"Sorry. Rules," she said.
"Have it your way. I'll give you a bird call when I'm in place. Wait for it."
She laughed, heading out through the bushes on her side of the road. "That is so hokey. Like that won't alert them?"
He shrugged. "So they'll be alert. Besides, you're warning them first. You clearly love a challenge."
She moved out of sight then, working her way parallel to the road, just as he did on the opposite side.
Adrenaline rushed through his veins along with an energy he welcomed. He had felt more alive these past few days than he ha
d since before he'd been wounded. It was like coming out of a fugue state. Dani had brought him back to life in other ways, too. Hell, he hadn't even had a date, hadn't kissed a woman, hadn't thought about sex in over a year. He grimaced. Okay, he had thought about sex. A lot, actually. But the urgency had been missing. At one point he rationalized that he had probably had his share and someone else's, too, before age thirty, and that he'd rather do without it than deal with the consequences.
In a small town like Ellerton where everybody knew everybody and everything that went on, there were always consequences. None of those had appealed to him.
As it happened, there were consequences to hooking up with Dani, too: he wanted her, and not just temporarily. This need for some kind of permanent commitment between them was the main consequence he had to deal with. Could she handle that?
He glanced in her direction, relieved when he saw no sign of her and heard nothing. Yeah, Dani could handle anything, he thought with pride. A girl after his own heart, all right. And he was definitely going to be the guy after hers.
A sharp trilling bird whistle yanked his attention back to business. Damn, she had beaten him to the punch. Would she wait for him to answer?
He heard a mumble of voices and click of weapons being cocked. Ben crept closer to the road, spied the quarry and zeroed in on the one with the biggest gun. They would open fire the instant Dani yelled to identify herself. He couldn't let that happen.
"Rendez vos armes! Surrender your weapons!" he thundered, then dropped flat on the ground. Good thing. A steady barrage of bullets cracked into trees all around him. One buzzed past his ear like an angry insect.
He scrambled sideways and took cover behind a stout hemlock. Peering around it when the firing ceased, he saw Dani emerge onto the road, the AK-47 trained on the two men writhing on the ground, both clutching their legs.
Ben joined her and gathered up the abandoned weaponry, stacking it safely to one side. "Excellent shooting," he said, inclining his head to the targets. He could see she was mad.
"You were protecting me, drawing their fire," she accused.